Sauces
by nakanokillyou
Summary: Sasuke is dragged on weekly trips to Ichiraku's, the city's largest fast food joint. He notices a boy who stands by the condiments with a strange fetish for sipping sauces. The path of seduction never seemed to lean so close to hell. SasuNaru
1. Prologue

Aha! I'm back! I've been on quite a long hiatus, and I'm sure that most of my previous readers have dropped me. ;_;

"Sauces" started out in my head as a quick "Wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am" kind of story, but I guess my magic touch makes everything squeaky clean and pristine. *cue collective groan* Yeah, I know. You all want lemons. It's coming; just not this chapter. So be patient!

* * *

**Prologue**

**The Homeless Boy in Ichiraku's**

It was the third time that Sasuke visited Ichiraku's for dinner when he noticed the boy who stood next to the condiment stand. His hair was matted and greasy and his cheekbones dangerously prominent - he was one of those faceless street urchins who would be escorted out of a gourmet restaurant before his bodily odors offended the delicate noses of the rich. But Ichiraku's was a fast food joint, and a large one at that - the boy easily slipped into the streaming urban crowds of Konoha without making the slightest ripple.

It was Tenten, Sasuke's girlfriend, who insisted that they meet up at Ichiraku's every Friday after her extensive hours of training. It was a low-key and informal get-together, in part because she hated the pomp and pretension of "_haute cuisine" _and its immediate relatives. Tenten was a no-frills woman, and certainly not one to be scoffed at. She was a strong, spirited athlete who sought to prove her worth to the world, building her career entirely by her own merit. Her name had finally surfaced in the international sports scene earlier that year when she participated in Hi no Kuni's national pole-vaulting conference and ascended the podium with a gold medal around her neck. Sasuke loved her.

He was unquestionably, undoubtedly in love with her. He loved the way her phone beeped every thirty minutes with a message from her badgering coach, loved the way she pestered him to visit the gym every day of the week, loved how she tied her hair in a puerile parody of Mickey Mouse. Yes, love was that feeling he simply could not put into words.

So it was inevitable that his attention to his girlfriend would derail that Friday night when he noticed the familiar figure near the condiment stand. The boy's eyes did not rest longingly on the cash register, where fresh hamburgers and fries were being wrapped - instead, he stared at the tub of sauces in front of him. With a flicker of mild interest Sasuke watched the boy slide his fingers into the pile of ketchup packets and withdraw one at random. He ripped open the packet and brought his mouth to the opening, moving deliberately and with delicate restraint. The boy's cheeks hollowed slightly as he sipped at the ketchup packet, his eyes closed blissfully. When the precious fluid was gone, he split the packet open at the seams with a desperate urgency and began to lick at the remains.

"Sasuke?" Tenten asked hesitantly. Sasuke had not realized that his mouth was hanging open.

"I'm with you," Sasuke responded smoothly and snapped his jaw shut, forcing the boy out of his mind.

During the next few trips to Ichiraku's Sasuke allowed himself fleeting glances at that homeless boy while he listened to his girlfriend, piecing together the bizarre ritual that the boy followed. Without fail, he would pick up three packets of a different kind and deconstruct them in this order: ketchup, mustard, and barbeque sauce. Sasuke found himself eagerly anticipating the finishing stages of the boy's ritual as he lapped at the insides of the packets with a nearly shameless animalism. The boy's pink tongue especially intrigued him as it flicked in and out of his thin lips to savor the sauces, a bright blur of color against the pallor of his face. When the boy had finished, he seemed to awaken to the crowd moving around him and furtively tossed the packets into the garbage.

Sasuke was not the only person who noticed the malnourished boy at the condiment stand. A sympathetic mother with twin sons once approached the boy, holding a cheeseburger with thick slices of bacon and mushrooms squeezed between two beef patties. The boy stared at the burger, ignoring the mother, and prodded between the buns. A look of disappointment crossed his face, and Sasuke instinctively knew what the boy was looking for: ketchup, a dash of mustard, perhaps mayo. The boy took the hamburger between his thin hands, split the buns down the middle, and then proceeded to give each half to the twins. He turned back to his precious condiments.

On his weekly trips to the grocery store, Sasuke often thought of the boy as he passed the condiments aisle. He imagined himself approaching the boy with a giant squeeze bottle of ketchup and chuckled lowly. The boy would probably die from a sodium-induced death, if not from the sheer ecstasy of owning a bottle of sauce for himself. Perhaps the meal-sized packets were for the best.

But some nagging voice in his head prompted him to buy a small bottle of balsamic vinaigrette, which he left in his coat pocket for the next time he visited Ichiraku's. He arrived a few minutes early, filling a small dipping cup with the vinaigrette and leaving it on the condiment stand. When the boy arrived at his usual haunt, he reached for a ketchup packet and froze when he saw the mysterious brown liquid in the cup. The boy hesitated, and Sasuke's lips quirked up at the boy's palpable struggle with curiosity. Slowly the boy leaned over the cup and sniffed it, then deeming it was safe, dipped his tongue into the sauce. Sasuke felt a shiver of pleasure brush down his spine as the boy's tongue slid around the rim of the cup, savoring the residue that the vinaigrette left on his tongue. He was sure the boy had never tasted anything like it and was committing it to memory.

Upon leaving the restaurant that night Tenten noticed that Sasuke looked faintly flushed, a strange gleam in his normally impassive eyes. Perhaps he was sick; he needed to build up his immune system by going to the gym more often, she suggested. He nodded and told her that he would keep that in mind.

It became a dangerous ritual for Sasuke, going on weekly trips to the supermarket and buying sauces of all kinds in a sick eagerness to watch the boy lap up his gifts like his own little pet dog. Chili sauce, wine vinegar, chutney – a few dollars out of Sasuke's pocket, but another new experience for a boy who treated every cup of sauce like a pot of gold. He would not call it charity, for he did not believe in such an effort. It was sheer curiosity, perhaps tinged with a flavor of its own. He could not pinpoint what emotion, what feeling, prompted the hair on his arms to stand at attention every time the boy's candy-pink tongue slid into a condiment cup.

One night something extraordinary happened. Sasuke had made a decision the day before to prepare his very own sauce for the boy. For the past few weeks he had resisted the impulse, knowing that his voyeurism could not pass beyond an understood line of impersonality. Buying a bottle of mayonnaise on a whim was one thing; standing at the stove and sautéing plums for a homeless boy was another. But that night his semblance of control was already cracking due to Tenten's incessant nagging, and it steadily began to flake off as he pictured the boy huddling over his precious paper cups.

On Friday Tenten made plans to eat dinner with her coach, so Sasuke sat at a booth in Ichiraku's alone. He left his homemade sauce on the condiment stand and waited patiently. The boy arrived on time, making a beeline for the condiment stand - or rather, for the cup that sat expectantly on top of it. A look of contentment seemed to settle on his face as he bent down to give the sauce his customary salutations. He dipped his tongue into the cup - and frowned. A thread of panicked thoughts fed through Sasuke's mind: _What did I do wrong? Did I put in too much salt? Were the plums not ripe?_

Suddenly he realized that the boy's eyes were trained directly on him.

Sasuke swallowed audibly.

The boy began to walk over to him, the cup dangling from his fingers.

"You made this, didn't you?" the boy asked. His voice was low and hoarse, as if he had not spoken recently.

"How did you know?"

"You have been watching me. I could tell." The boy's cobalt eyes narrowed.

"So you've realized," Sasuke responded in wonder. An amused half-smile settled on his lips. "You are quite the interesting creature."

"I'm not an animal."

"I never implied that."

"Your gifts do."

"And what of my latest 'gift', as you say?"

"I don't understand it," the boy responded, his brow knit in frustration. His eyes dropped to the frayed hem of his sweater. "But I…want more."

"What would you like, exactly?" Sasuke murmured, his voice dropping to the husky timbre reserved for less-than-public exchanges. The conversation was moving into dangerous territory, and it was against Sasuke's better judgment to continue it. Yet instead of quickly excusing himself he leaned in to watch the conflicting expressions that played on the boy's face.

"I want," the boy seemed to roll his words experimentally around his tongue, "you to take me to LaSalle's."

There it was – the outstretched hand, the chain that would tangle itself impossibly around him from if he took hold of it – "And what exactly do I get out of it?" Sasuke asked, his voice teasing.

"A maid, a garbage boy for a day. Whatever you want."

Sasuke's eyebrows arched questioningly. "Really? You would stoop so low just to eat at a small restaurant? It's not even the city's finest Italian."

The boy laughed harshly. "Stoop so low? I think you forget who I am."

Sasuke looked appropriately contrite. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to offend you."

"Don't start," the boy said dismissively. "Besides, it has what I want." He turned away, signaling the end of the conversation.

Sasuke couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of irritation at the boy's attempts to brush him off. He stood up, his manner suddenly detached and businesslike. "Right, then. LaSalle's it is. For the sake of formalities, we should treat this as an agreement between two consenting parties. Shall we?"

"Sure," Naruto agreed curtly.

"Good. Meet me at around 3:00 at Shandy's Wharf tomorrow. My house is on the waterfront."

"I can wait in front of the restaurant," the boy interjected.

"Not in those clothes," Sasuke retorted, brushing the front of the boy's grimy sweater with a flippant sweep of his hand. "The maitre'd would sooner lick the ground than wait on a boy who looks as if hasn't showered in years."

The boy self-consciously jerked away from Sasuke's touch and readjusted his hood. "Fine. I'll be there." He turned to leave.

"You won't tell me your name?" Sasuke called behind him. The boy pointedly ignored him and continued to walk towards the door. "Or should I just settle with "dirty blonde"?"

The boy stiffened at Sasuke's chuckles and whirled around. "It's Naruto, jackass," he venomously spat, and ducked out the door.


	2. Chapter 1

I want to say thank you to the wonderful reviewers who took the time to comment on the measly little chapter I posted last week. They were incredibly thoughtful and gave me good insight, and I couldn't ask for anything more. Now onto the next installment!

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**Chapter 1**

**The Preparations**

It took Naruto sixteen years to realize that being homeless meant that you owned nothing and everything. When you began life sucking the breasts of two drunken prostitutes from the inside of a discarded paper bin, you knew that you lost your most intimate childhood companion: innocence. When you first heard the saying "you are what you eat" you laughed long and hard, because you knew the phrase better than anyone, because the garbage dump you were found in was where you salvaged your first meal – a bag of expired curry and the bloated pulp of leftover cereal. You are what you eat, indeed: the stink and refuse of society. You were a burden on the tax-paying citizens of Konoha, and thus the citizens owned you. They owned you and they did not want you – their nauseous glances as they walked briskly by and their guilty countenances as they dropped a dollar bill in front of you spoke volumes.

But you were the grand master of the streets, a virtuoso of the subway jazz and the airport blues. The streets paid back the passion and youth that died within you in double indemnity, filling you with its sights and sounds and smells. Certainly you saw no romance in the idea; after all, you traded your soul for a ticket to the city's filth and upchuck. But you had no choice. It was the fairest deal that existed in a metropolis of cold steel and cold people.

And so Naruto owned everything, and he owned nothing. His viscera might as well have been pulled out of his body cavity and laid bare on the streets for all to see – after all, he was the trodden newspaper, the twisted cigarette butt, the half-drunk water bottle. One might think that Naruto was blessed with a sense of interdependence, of feeling a spiritual "oneness" with the universe – but he was merely as invisible as the forgotten objects on the streets. No sentimental thought would change that hollow reality.

But within the empty vacuum of Naruto's life lay a solitary gem, a vivid memory that Naruto remembered in minutes, sometimes in seconds, other times in shutter-speed. It was a memory of his chest throbbing in hot pain as he lay heaving on the ground, of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth and disappearing into the cracks of the sidewalk. It was a memory of his scalp being wrenched up by a large fist and a voice panting heavily into his ear: "_Fucking shit-eater."_ But superimposed above all else was the memory of a savory, rich cream that dissolved on his tongue like molten fire as he lay bruised and broken, his heart beating wildly in his tiny twelve-year-old ribcage for the very first time.

* * *

Naruto cupped his chapped hands against his mouth and blew puffs of warm air into the makeshift cavern, shifting his weight from foot to foot in barely concealed impatience. The February air had lowered to intolerable temperatures that day, leaving the streets bereft of its usual activity. The Konoha urbanites, in their filigree stockings and open-chested jackets, were sent scurrying off by the biting wind to seek refuge in the nearest coffee shops. Naruto squinted at the city tower in the distance and read the time on the scrolling digital screen: 3:03. He had been waiting in the same spot an hour earlier than the prearranged time.

A black car diverged from the crawling stream of traffic and rolled to a smooth stop by the curb where Naruto was standing. Naruto quickly shuffled to the car and opened the backseat door without preamble.

"You're three minutes late," Naruto accused the black-haired figure in the driver's seat as he clambered in. He sighed indulgently as he sank into the leather seats.

The man turned to watch the street boy lounge lazily in the passenger seat as if he had sat on fine upholstery all his life. He said teasingly, "No 'hello' or 'thank you'?"

"Is it necessary? You're talking to the dirt pile, after all."

Sasuke chuckled. "Still sore about my comment from before?"

The boy's face broke into a roguish smile. "No," he said with an air of indifference, and propped his ratty sneakers onto the cherry-wood armrest in the front. "It's my job to spread myself over everything that's clean."

Sasuke winced as the boy's shoes left unsightly streaks on the polished wood. He pushed the boy's feet off the armrest, only to find a sample of the city's filth streaked onto his own palm. Naruto laughed.

Sasuke pulled a handful of tissues from a Kleenex box nearby and wiped his hands distastefully. "Clean up your mess," he said, throwing the crumpled tissues at the boy.

"Yes, sir," Naruto said obediently. He took the tissues and began to scrub roughly at the bottom of his soles.

Sasuke's mouth curled into a frown as he watched dirt drop off the boy's shoes in grainy flakes onto the carpet below. "Wait, don't-"

"I'm done." The used tissue was casually tossed into his lap. Sasuke gingerly picked up the edge of the blackened tissue between his fingertips, loose flecks of dirt peppering his silk pant leg. Naruto smiled innocently.

* * *

A moan filled the car for the umpteenth time as it crossed over a small dip in the asphalt, bobbing slightly.

"We're almost there," Sasuke assured his agonized passenger.

"I don't care. Just let me get out. I'm going to barf any minute now," Naruto groaned. He bolted outside just as the car rolled into a flagstone driveway. He squatted on the grass of the lawn and held his head between his hands, his teeth gritted in pain. The jarring bumps and frequent stops sent waves of nausea plowing mercilessly into his skull. Naruto heard the click of leather shoes approach him.

"Do you need aspirin?" the man asked from above him.

Naruto ignored the concern in Sasuke's tone and shot irritably, "Give me a minute. I'll be fine."

"You'll feel better if you take it." Sasuke placed his hand onto the boy's shoulder. Naruto shrugged the hand off. The man sighed. "Come on," he urged placatingly.

Naruto suddenly felt two large hands sliding under his armpits, wrenching his body up. His body instantly went cold at the contact. Warning signals blared in his mind as he became hyper-aware of the dominating chest pressed behind him. Instinctively he craned his neck and sank his teeth into the man's offensively-placed hands.

"_Fuck!_" The curse rang in the air as the man dropped Naruto abruptly and cradled his bitten hand. "What was that for?"

"Don't touch me!" Naruto snarled, scrambling up onto his feet and stepping backwards a few feet from Sasuke.

"I was trying to help you up!" Sasuke protested angrily. He hissed in pain as he nursed the bleeding mark. "You bit me because of that?"

"No one touches me," Naruto declared vehemently. "Not you, not anyone else."

The boy fixed Sasuke with a defiant stare, his fists trembling in retaliation at his sides. Sasuke exhaled once and distractedly ran his abused hand through his hair, mussing the carefully arranged spikes. "Alright, alright. Let's go inside. I'll show you where the bathroom is so you can get ready for tonight."

Naruto stood warily behind Sasuke as he punched numbers into an electronic panel on the front porch. The door swung open with a muted click. Naruto's alertness partially melted away as he stepped into the front hallway. He whistled softly.

"Nice place." It was an understatement, and both men knew it. The entrance to the front hallway was built in the style of a Greek portico, stone pillars framing a rectangle of marble floor sunken into the ground. A small fountain stood in the middle of the depressed floor, in which three angels surfaced from the depths of the basin, as if awakening from an underwater slumber. The middle angel stood the tallest above his counterparts, his hand raised to the vaulted ceiling above him in triumph. But what made the scene so breathtaking was the backdrop behind it: the multistory bay windows in the adjoining room revealed the glittering wintry sea and the steel sky above it.

"So this is how rich people take baths," Naruto said cheekily, pointing to the fountain. "Surrounded by angels, with an oceanfront view and everything."

Sasuke chuckled. "No, street boy. The bathroom's down that way." He pointed down a nearby hallway with an arched entrance. "Go ahead. I'll bring towels soon."

As the muted roar of the bath faucet filled the household, Sasuke stood absently at the kitchen counter, watching drops of black liquid fill the coffee brewer. He shook his head incredulously at the thought of the boy in the bathroom above. Never in his life had he dealt with such a child. He was unpredictable and explosive – sure, Sasuke had handled the occasionally temperamental clients in his professional life, but none of them had ever responded to him with such ferocity_. And none had resorted to biting my hand under duress_, he thought in half-irritation and half-amusement.

The incident on the lawn had momentarily thrown him off and almost succeeded in allowing his iron composure to slip – but who was he to blame? He had never had a person's teeth, much less a dog's, violate his flesh in such an impromptu show of bestiality. Afterwards the boy had regarded him the way a threatened animal would, his eyes blazing with pure aggression. His skinny frame trembled violently, so violently that Sasuke had feared he would split from the sheer force of his emotions.

_I can't begin to imagine all the things that must have occurred in that boy's life to make him so defensive_, he thought as he poured himself a cup of coffee. Yet Sasuke could not bring himself to feel sympathy for the boy. Clearly, he would never be able to grasp the hardships that Naruto was exposed to on the streets. As the son of the city's most prominent business magnate, Sasuke was born not only with a silver spoon in a mouth - his friends joked that he left the womb wearing a Rolex wristwatch, an Armani suit, and Prada shoes.

He was incredibly privileged, and he had always known it. His family made sure he learned that their wealth did not come easily, and they pushed him relentlessly in both high school and college. Even so, Sasuke's life had been one of relative ease. As a boy, he never needed to venture beyond the four corners of his family's fifty-acre estate. Even when he breached his teenage years, he only visited Konoha's most exclusive clubs, shopped in its most expensive districts. And so fate had determined from the very start that he would never cross paths with Naruto and his street brethren.

But when Fate decided to overturn its ruling on a December night in Ichiraku's, Sasuke had not been exposed to the misery and suffering hidden from his privileged life. He had seen a homeless boy in one of his happiest moments, indulging blissfully in the sauces he loved so much.

Somehow that image seemed far more respectful than picturing the boy on the side of a street, holding out a begging cup to people who walked by with blind eyes and deaf ears.

* * *

Naruto's head broke through the film of deflated soap bubbles, the sound reverberating metallically in the room of marble and glass. He gasped for air, reveling in the violent contractions of his ribcage as he rested against the cool porcelain of the bathtub. He had never felt such divine warmth in his life. After Sasuke had left him to soak on his own, Naruto turned the hot water knob to maximum flow until his legs began to prickle and turn a dangerous shade of pink. The heat felt exotic and suffocating on his naked skin.

The few times he would bathe was during the summer, when he could freely strip off his clothes at night and take a dip in the sea. Among the homeless in Konoha, exposing one's skin in the plain sight of others was taboo. No one really knew why the idea inspired such horror – perhaps it was a sense of self-consciousness that the city branded on its homeless, time and time again, until they learned to feel shame as reflexively as they felt hunger.

Whatever the reason, Naruto slipped to the nearest beach alone on summer nights, peeling off layers of clothing in the dark and swimming in the sea until he all but dragged himself onto shore in physical exhaustion. Even then the water had only been tepid and the rocky shore had whittled painful dents into his feet. But here he felt nothing but the fizzing water tingle pleasantly on his skin as he rolled freely in the bathtub.

A knock on the door startled him out of his dreamlike state.

"You've been soaking in the bath for an hour," came the muffled voice. "You'll pass out from dehydration if you stay in there any longer."

"I'll survive," Naruto drawled, lazily flicking a bead of water in the direction of the door.

Naruto could faintly hear the man chuckling. "Sounds like you're enjoying yourself."

Naruto submerged his lips and blew noisy bubbles in response.

"Seems like the bath did wonders for someone's mood," Sasuke teased. "Can I expect to see a fresh new appearance as well?"

"Hell yeah," Naruto said, raising an arm and examining it in the light. "I'm fucking _glistening_."

Sasuke laughed. "Ok, then. Since you're clean, it's time to dry off."

"We're leaving?" Naruto asked as he raised himself from the bathtub reluctantly.

"In thirty minutes," Sasuke replied, and opened the door with a fresh set of towels.

Naruto yelped and dove back under the water. "What are you doing?" he hissed, wrapping his arms around his bent legs protectively.

"Relax," Sasuke said, his eyebrows raised in surprise as he gestured to the towel in his arm. "You need this."

"You could have given me a warning!" Naruto shot back, his face flushing profusely under Sasuke's scrutiny.

Sasuke's lips twitched in amusement. "I believe we are both male, are we not?"

"It doesn't matter!" Naruto said defensively, attempting to wheel himself around. "I don't get naked around other people!"

Sasuke took a step forward. Naruto's eyes narrowed at Sasuke's playful smirk. "Don't you dare."

"Glistening, you said?"

Naruto raised an arm above the water threateningly. "Don't do it! I'll splash that fancy shirt of yours."

Sasuke held up his hands in defeat, chuckling. "Alright, I won't come near you. But we are leaving, so hurry up. Come to my bedroom when you're done. We'll try to find you some suitable clothes for the evening."

When Naruto had changed into the bathrobe Sasuke left for him, he found the man rummaging through his dresser drawers, unfolding shirts and holding them out at arm's length.

"I won't fit into that," Naruto blurted out as he looked at the T-shirt Sasuke had been inspecting.

Sasuke looked up. "Oh. Nice to see you in proper clothing," he grinned. "Unfortunately, none of my shirts from high school seem to be the appropriate size. I suppose we have to go back a couple more years? Perhaps back to my clothes from middle school?"

"Oh, you mean back in the 1960's?" Naruto said cheekily.

Sasuke tutted at the boy and wagged a long pale finger at him. "For your information, I am twenty-six, active, and in the prime of my life."

"Of course, you've got everything anyone can possibly want," Naruto continued sarcastically. "Money."

Sasuke hummed in agreement. "Amen to that."

"And a beautiful girlfriend. She's really something, isn't she?"

Sasuke's smile suddenly seemed tight. "Yes, she is a wonderful girlfriend. Why don't you take a look at this shirt? It looks like it would fit."

"She really loves to talk, doesn't she?" Naruto continued, a smirk steadily growing on his face. "But I felt sorry for her at Ichiraku's. It looked like she was having a conversation with herself. Or maybe with a brick wall. It's a shame she has to deal with such a deadbeat partner…"

"Naruto." Startled blue eyes met black. The man had never directly addressed him by his name before. Naruto knew he had crossed a line – the man had not been upset, but his face had lost all trace of good humor and his eyes had turned into chilling slabs of slate. "I said, drop it."

The temperature in the room cooled a few degrees. Anticipating a long stretch of uncomfortable silence, Naruto huffed and pulled the shirt from Sasuke's hands.

"I'm trying this on," he said shortly. "Get out."

* * *

After a long, arduous process of bickering, slamming drawers, and throwing various hair products back and forth, Sasuke finally gave himself a self-congratulatory nod as he inspected his handiwork, which was currently standing on his front doorstep. Naruto's once unruly locks were tamed into a tassel of curls, softening the shadows on his undernourished face. His ashen complexion was dusted with a hint of color, no doubt from the hour-long bath he had taken, and gave off a taut luster that Sasuke enhanced with generous slatherings of lotion.

"Leave the jeans alone," Sasuke scolded as Naruto irritably pulled them higher up on his waist. "I told you, they fit you well."

"What I don't understand," Naruto complained, "is why guys want to wear pants that fall halfway down their ass."

Sasuke's lips quirked upwards. "It's fashionable."

"Fashion can kiss my homeless ass," Naruto declared contemptuously. "God made pants to cover it."

Sasuke chuckled at the boy's wit, smoothing out his own sweater. He dressed in moderate tones of blue and black for the evening, making sure he would not eclipse Naruto on his most anticipated night. "But Naruto, you must like the shirt we picked, at least."

"This?" He fingered the shirt under his collared jacket. "It's alright." Naruto wouldn't admit that he liked the shirt very much indeed. It was olive green and made of a light, flexible material that draped around his neck in loose folds. It was a far cry from the heavy, itchy coats that he piled on during the winter.

"I think you pass the clean-up inspection," Sasuke approved, dusting an imaginary piece of lint off Naruto's shoulder. "Now, to LaSalle's?"

Naruto brushed past him in a haughty affectation of a highbrow aristocrat. "Yes, my chauffeur," he replied in mock condescension, patting the man's shoulder as he walked by.

Sasuke's lips twitched in amusement as he watched the boy strut to the car. "Careful, or you'll start ordering cocktails when you're back on the streets again."

Naruto gestured to the car. "Your job?" he said pointedly. Sasuke played along and bowed deeply, opening the backseat door of his sedan with a flourish of his arm.

* * *

The car ride had been less painful for Naruto as Sasuke attempted to engage him in light conversation, an effort that Naruto reciprocated with less inflammatory remarks. Even his queasy stomach could not dampen his spirits – in a few minutes he would be standing in front of those glass windows again, and the memories would be colliding into him at full impact, and he would do everything in his power not to begin weeping in front of his day-long patron when he found himself on the other side of those red doors…

But Fate has a strange sense of humor, or perhaps a simply sadistic streak. Because on those red doors the sign "Store for Rent" hung in bold letters, the windows pitch-black and empty. Because those memories did indeed come crashing into him, but they played through his mind like a film noir, forever painted in monochrome, forever taunting him. And that rasping voice, breathing damp air into his bleeding ear. "_Fucking shit eater. Go back to where you belong."_

"Excuse me, sir, do you know when did LaSalle's closed down?"

"Maybe two or three weeks ago. Business was going downhill, especially with that new cook. I heard the city inspection officer got a hold of them. Rats in the kitchen, it was."

"_Shit eater."_

"Do you know if there are any other restaurant branches in town?"

"No, it was a pretty modest family business."

"_Go back."_

"Naruto." Sasuke grabbed hold of the boy's shoulders and looked him firmly in the eye. "We'll go somewhere else, ok?"

"_Go back to where you belong."_

"Like I said, LaSalle's isn't the best in the town."

Something in Sasuke's words triggered the arrested wheels and springs within Naruto's body to suddenly burst into motion. He thrust away Sasuke's hands and twisted around –

"No." The word was as definitive and resounding as the large hand that clamped down on his arm. Naruto turned back to look at Sasuke, a frantic, wild look in his eyes.

"Why? Let go!"

"No." Sasuke's mind was blank. "Stay."

"There's nothing here! You heard the man!"

"You owe me."

"Oh." Suddenly the desperate frenzy of motion within Naruto ground to a halt. Sasuke was right – he had bathed Naruto, clothed him, and had even promised to fulfill one of Naruto's greatest fantasies. He had not known that his preparations would have been for naught. "What did you want me to do?" Naruto asked, his tone considerably dulled.

"Stay with me tonight. That is your payment," was all Sasuke said, and he pulled Naruto into the backseat of his car before he could change his mind.


	3. Chapter 2

I just want to start out by saying "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU" to a reviewer named "**Sunny,**" who gave me absolutely glowing praise and great insight in the last chapter. If you were registered on ffnet I would have sent you a reply equally as passionate as your marvelous review. So instead I posted my response here. *waves* I love you too!

Whewwww. This chapter is twice as long as the last chapter. I had way too much fun with this one though - allow me to introduce Gaara and Neji like you've never seen them before! Oh, and taro bubble tea, for those of you who don't know what the stuff is. Tastiest purple drink on the planet to get your antioxidants from, and I'll stand by that. ;-)

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**Night at Ledachi**

Somehow the night air, which had leveled reasonably at the freezing point only moments before, dropped to arctic temperatures as Sasuke intently watched the stone-faced boy sitting beside him on the park bench. He was holding a chocolate ice cream cone between two reddening hands with as much enthusiasm as a child would hold a replacement doll after losing his favorite toy.

"Naruto." The boy's head snapped up at the sound of his name, and his stark granite eyes suddenly seemed to uncloud as if he were seeing Sasuke for the first time. Slowly Naruto placed his tongue flat on the scoop of ice cream, licking up mechanically. The sight was too much for Sasuke to bear. He grabbed the cone from Naruto's hand and threw it into the garbage bin nearby.

"Don't force yourself," he told Naruto, pulling him up by the arm. "It's miserable to watch you attempt gratitude in this state."

The two found refuge in Sasuke's car. Sasuke began to drive aimlessly, the pace of minutes and seconds hopelessly losing itself in the fog of vagrancy. From time to time Sasuke would glance at Naruto's inert figure in the rearview mirror, passing cars illuminating his pale, impassive face.

Sasuke cleared his throat to break the dense silence. He tilted his head in Naruto's direction and asked, "You have never been on Ledachi, have you?"

Naruto stared at him in silence for a while. "No," came the hesitant response. Ledachi Avenue was the city's main entertainment spot. It was famous for its impeccable appearance year round, the sidewalks swept every half-hour during the summer and unsightly city slush dumped onto other streets in the winter. Garbage never lasts in Ledachi, the saying went. And so it was an unwritten rule that the homeless should never set foot within a hundred-foot radius of the area.

Sasuke made an effort to smile, knowing that it would make itself evident in his voice. "Well, it doesn't hurt to try something new."

Naruto closed his eyes and feigned sleep.

* * *

Naruto found the appearance of Ledachi Avenue to be somewhat peculiar. In a sentimental effort to recreate an idyllic Victorian era scene, the road developers had foregone the traditional use of asphalt in favor of laying a wide strip of cobblestone, replacing street lights with hanging embellished lanterns. The developers, unfortunately, had no control over the steady influx of glass-and-chrome buildings that sprung up on the street. And so the starry-eyed planners packed away their T-squares in tears, watching their fairy-tale street fall to pieces as modern corporations moved in.

The public reaction to the street's design had been mixed. Distinguished architects denounced Ledachi Avenue, declaring it an embarrassingly frou-frou attempt to beautify the city; Konoha inhabitants found it endearing. They claimed it was a fusion of the new with the old, a testament to Konoha's power in the past and present.

Strange or not, the miserable weight that had settled in Naruto's stomach began to lift as he beheld the brightly-lit bubble of activity, feeding off the raw electricity that ran through the stream of bustling pedestrians. Sasuke sensed his companion's growing contentment and smiled briefly, grasping Naruto's hand.

"Konoha's largest open-air mall is up ahead," he said, and pulled Naruto forward.

Sasuke found it incredibly amusing when Naruto bypassed the fifteen most popular clothing stores in Ledachi to enter the first furniture store in sight. He sank into the most comfortable sofa he could find and sighed peacefully. When he noticed Sasuke staring patiently at him, he asked, "What?"

"Are you ready?" he asked, his tone indicating that he was ready to leave.

"What else are we going to do?" Naruto asked, puzzled.

"Shopping…" Sasuke drew out the word as if it were obvious.

"Oh. Right," Naruto muttered. He had forgotten that shopping was the main pastime of well-to-do city dwellers – he, on the other hand, had been so accustomed to avoiding stores displaying expensive clothes in their windows that they had simply vanished into the city background.

As Sasuke and Naruto exited the store, a man's voice called tentatively from behind. "Uchiha Minor?"

"Neji and Gaara!" Sasuke exclaimed, greeting a pair of stylishly dressed men who were linking arms without discomfiture at the stares they drew from passerby. "How are you?"

"Oh, Neji and I are doing well," the red-haired man said offhandedly. He was thinner and shorter than his partner, but equally as handsome. His eyes were a stunning shade of green, framed by thick auburn eyelashes. They flickered to Naruto as he addressed Sasuke. "We haven't seen you and Uchiha Major in a while. But if I may ask, who is this young man accompanying you tonight?"

The taller Asian man with long black hair swept up in a ponytail looked Naruto up and down and practically moaned. "_God_ yes, Sasuke. Tell me you dumped that tedious bitch for this delicious little lemon drop." He waggled his eyebrows mischievously at Naruto, his voice switching into an overly emphatic falsetto. "You know? 'Oh, please Sasuke, can't you run those thirty laps with me? We can both train for the Olympics, you and me together!'" Naruto struggled to stifle the grin that threatened to form on his lips.

His red-haired companion nodded. "And not to mention her sense of style. As if baggy neon track suits belong anywhere other than in the janitor's closet. Oh, spare me!" He scoffed and flipped his scarf over his shoulder for emphasis.

Neji hummed in agreement, reaching out to tousle Gaara's curly locks. "Women like Tenten don't understand a man's heart. She takes out her little harpy talons and tries to embrace her companion, but instead she squeezes him to death. Men, on the other hand, know when to let their partner breathe."

"_Vive la différence_," Gaara quipped, looking up to the heavens in mock prayer.

"That's right. It was about time that Sasuke found the grass to be much greener on the other side. You know our one sacred rule about relationships –"

"– Oh, lord, here we go," Sasuke muttered.

"…that the lives of two partners…"

"…must be conjoined…"

"…in ONE – COHESIVE – WHOLE," they chorused.

Sasuke looked at Naruto apologetically.

"But Sasuke!" Neji declared, clasping his hand on Sasuke's shoulder heartily. "My good friend, you can't believe how thrilled we are at your new choice of partner –"

"– gender," Gaara added.

"– and we want to pay our respects to this fine specimen of a boy. Is he even legal?"

"Neji!" Sasuke said, scandalized.

"I'm sorry, we didn't mean to offend you," Neji apologized, turning to Naruto. "But you do look so young! Edible, yes, but very young."

Naruto wasn't sure if he was supposed to act affronted by the couple's assessment of his palatability. "I'm not…Sasuke's partner," he said hesitantly, the foreignness of his patron's name leaving an odd aftertaste on his tongue.

"Yes, I'm only showing the boy around for a bit," Sasuke jumped in, grateful at the chance to clarify the situation. "Allow me to introduce Naruto. He's a friend from a small town, so he hasn't had the full city experience yet."

"Oh, allow us to help you!" Gaara declared excitedly. "We know the best nightclubs around –"

"Places for a sixteen-year-old boy," Sasuke interposed warningly.

"– or we can also suggest some decent karaoke spots!"

Sasuke gave his young escort a questioning glance. Naruto shrugged noncommittally and said, "Whatever. It's your night."

The gay pair interpreted Naruto's response in the affirmative, whooping in delight and all but throwing themselves into planning spots to visit for the night. Sasuke's eyes lingered solemnly on Naruto for a moment. He knew what Naruto's seemingly neutral words had meant: _It was _my _night, but it got taken away from me._

Sasuke leaned in to whisper into Naruto's ear, his cool breath faintly brushing against his skin. "Part of your payment is to have fun tonight. Don't let me down."

"Sasuke, how does Kenkai-Ten sound?" Neji called, a few paces ahead.

"Kenkai-Ten is excellent," Sasuke responded, straightening up and smiling at Naruto. "Don't you agree?"

Naruto shot him his best "do-I-have-to?" glare, and nodded his head sardonically.

"Well, then," Neji declared, pulling Gaara close. "Shall we?"

"We shall indeed," Sasuke responded without missing a beat. He followed Neji's lead and slipped his hand around Naruto's waist, smirking boldly at his shorter companion. Naruto bit his tongue to withhold the venomous remark that threatened to lash out. Instead he smiled innocently and snaked his own arm around Sasuke's torso, almost snickering when a fleeting look of surprise flashed across Sasuke's face at the unexpected contact.

"Well, well. The pup has claws," Sasuke noted in amusement, mirroring Naruto's devious grin.

As Naruto began to walk with the trio of cultured city-boys, he briefly wondered how he looked to the people around him. Perhaps they thought he was a student tagging along with the older boys, eager to fit into a crowd he didn't belong in. Or perhaps he blended in perfectly, a blonde-haired addition to the Asian-European duality in the group. But if he laughed, would it sound carefree and nonchalant, like the rest of them? If he spoke, would his words be clever and sharp, weaving themselves fluidly into their witty exchanges?

Naruto had the feeling - no, he knew - that Sasuke was keeping him by his side for the night merely for the purpose of showing off his new boytoy to his friends. It was his own amusing little masquerade, proving that Sasuke held the power to bring even the lowest of the low up to his own lofty ranks by scrubbing his skin clean and dolling him up in fine clothes. But somehow, Naruto couldn't bring himself to care. A dangerously enticing voice told him that he even liked the attention, soaked it all up like the deprived little pauper he was. Yes, he felt good, Sasuke's arm lingering around his waist, the lights of the city casting their hues on him like muted spotlights. He felt really good.

The group reached Kenkai-Ten in a matter of minutes. It was a fairly nondescript establishment from the outside, its façade blending into the long glassy line of cramped stores. The inside, however, was an entirely different matter: multiple floors were partitioned by clean, minimalistic lines that spanned the entire width of the building, a cross-section of all four levels visible from the entrance. Naruto felt as if he had walked into a life-sized colony of geometric ant tunnels. The couple led Sasuke and Naruto down the entrance steps to the underground floor, which was lined on one end with frosted-glass karaoke booths, a small mahogany bar on the other.

Gaara grabbed Naruto's hand before Sasuke could object and led him to the small bar. "One large taro bubble tea," he called to the barista, winking at Naruto. "You'll like it."

When Naruto rejoined the group with a tall glass of lavender-colored liquid in hand, Sasuke raised a dark eyebrow questioningly. Naruto shrugged and sipped at his oversized straw, sucking up a large tapioca pearl. "What? It's good."

The drink was frothy and creamy, with a hint of musk from that strange root that Gaara called "taro." He couldn't imagine how a vegetable could be such a bafflingly purple color – but then again, he had learned not to question the eccentricities of the fabulously rich. The tapioca pearls at the bottom had been a pleasant surprise: although they were bland and unremarkable on their own, the chewy texture was the perfect complement to the velvety liquid.

"Remind me to buy you mysteriously colored desserts from now on," Sasuke chuckled and leaned in to capture the straw between Naruto's fingers with his lips. Naruto felt a pang of guilt at the implication of Sasuke's words – only an hour ago he had been offered a different dessert and implicitly rejected it. At the time, however, the ice cream had both tasted and felt like gluey paste cementing to the roof of his mouth.

"Gaara has good taste," Naruto commented appreciatively, to which the fiery-haired man responded by flashing milky white teeth at him.

"Naruto, we decided on renting a booth for two hours," Gaara informed him. "Neji and I will pay."

"No, I couldn't –" Naruto began.

"Consider it a gift to us. We haven't had fresh meat in a while," Neji interrupted saucily, draping his arm over Naruto's shoulder. "Let us have our fun, so don't be a spoilsport."

As a waiter unlocked a booth for the group and handed Sasuke a remote control, Naruto noticed Neji and Gaara scanning the menu of alcoholic beverages.

"Unfortunately, Naruto, you are in the company of three adult men who work at stuffy jobs all day," Neji said apologetically when he noticed Naruto's curious stare. "You'll have to allow us to unravel a bit to break that stiff composure we have to maintain for so long."

"I believe you're comfortable enough," Sasuke said, rolling his eyes.

"Sasuke is the stiffest stick of them all," Gaara jested, his aquamarine eyes twinkling at Naruto. "His posture is telling. He's practically got an iron rod shoved into his spine."

"I've gotten him angry before," Naruto blurted out.

"You have?" Neji asked incredulously, leaning out of his seat in rapt attention. "How?"

"I bit him," Naruto replied, feeling a bit foolish.

The booth fell silent.

"You did _what?_" Gaara asked incredulously, and he and Neji erupted into laughter.

"Well, aren't you the daredevil!" Neji said in admiration.

Sasuke's eyebrow twitched irritably. "That's quite enough," he said curtly, sending a warning glare in Neji's direction. The boy's primitive behavior earlier that day did not need to be encouraged any further.

Neji straightened up and raised his arm in a mock salute. "_Ja wohl,_ _mein F__ü__hrer_. Now Gaara, you were looking at the Juyondai sake?"

* * *

It was unexpected for Sasuke to discover that Naruto had actually amassed a sundry collection of songs in his lifetime. Granted, Naruto could only recognize bits and pieces, most likely from the open-windowed cars that stalled in heavy traffic or the stores that played a continuous loop of songs throughout the day.

But Sasuke had to think quickly when Naruto stared at Gaara in confusion as the man ran through a laundry list of song titles that most privileged people would have recognized. Sasuke intervened, aptly feeding Neji and Gaara a story about how Naruto lived in a conservative household where listening to music was a punishable diversion. The duo had taken the bait enthusiastically, throwing themselves into their own contrived game of selecting songs they believed he might recognize. When Naruto picked up on a familiar line and began to hum along, Neji and Gaara began to hoot and clap excitedly. At one point, Sasuke even opted to join in, singing a soulful rendition of Midler's "Wind Beneath my Wings." When he bent down on one knee and began serenading a tomato-faced Naruto, the couple collapsed against each other in fits of laughter, wiping tears away with their shirts.

And so Neji and Gaara stumbled out of Kenkai-Ten two hours later, more than a bit tipsy, with Naruto wedged in between the lively couple.

"Now, off to the supermarket!" Neji blustered happily.

"Neji, I think it's time for you to go home," Sasuke suggested as he watched his friend blink repeatedly in an effort to focus his dazed eyes.

"Oh, falderal, folderol!" Neji said breezily, waving his hand dismissively. "The air is crisp! The night is young!"

"And vanilla wafers are waiting," Gaara purred. His cheeks were rosy from drink and his teal eyes had lowered enticingly. Neji's blustering manner instantly dissipated as he looked down at his flushed partner. His eyes glinted predatorily.

"Oh, for pete's sake," Sasuke muttered as Neji's hand slipped lower to fondle Gaara's ass. "God, control yourself in public! You've got a minor sandwiched in between you two!"

"He's right, love. I suppose we'll have to share our vanilla wafers elsewhere," Neji murmured fondly to his shorter companion, gifting him with a kiss on his pert nose. The couple thus bid their adieus to Naruto and Sasuke, giving each a farewell embrace and a parting kiss. They refused to leave, however, until Naruto promised to visit the city again in the future.

"Remember: _L'Cheim!_" they cried and saluted the two as they disappeared into a taxi.

"What does that mean?" Naruto asked after the cab had driven off with the couple pressing their faces against the rear window, waving animatedly at them.

"To life," Sasuke responded, the last vestiges of the night's entertainment still lingering on his upturned lips.

Naruto was welcomed back into Sasuke's house afterwards, which had been a surprising gesture. It would have been fitting for the two to part ways after Gaara and Neji had left, but Sasuke had motioned in the direction of his car and Naruto had to oblige him. During the silent drive back to Sasuke's house, a nagging fear began to sink into Naruto's mind. Sasuke had clothed him, entertained him – now that he was bringing him home at the end of the night's festivities, what did he want in return? Naruto was not naïve. He had heard his fair share of stories about people who were forced to repay debts or favors through acts of prostitution. The moral to those stories had been simple: establish relationships with the least number of people as possible.

"_We can treat this as an agreement between two consenting parties…"_

For the first time, Naruto began to wonder if his contract with Sasuke had been too rash.

* * *

"What are you waiting for? Come inside," Sasuke said with an edge of impatience as Naruto lingered hesitantly on his porch.

"It's late," Naruto said, choosing his words carefully. "And I'm a bit tired. So I should be going now."

Sasuke chuckled, his voice dropping to a low rumble. The sound sent chills running down Naruto's spine. "Don't think you can leave just yet. I have one more thing to show you tonight."

The suggestive tone of Sasuke's sentence set off the final warning bells in Naruto's head. His mind slammed shut and his body shifted to autopilot, leading him to follow his most basic survival instinct: he sent his fist crashing into Sasuke's face and bolted.

If only his mind had been functioning properly. In his frenzy to escape, he had forgotten that the doorsteps were behind him. With a shout he toppled backwards, his head whipping back to crash against the flagstone with a sickening crack.

"Oh, fuck," Naruto swore as the pain spread instantly through his neck, paralyzing him. A shadow hovered ominously over him, and Naruto gulped. He could practically see the infernal mouth of hell stretching open to swallow him whole.

* * *

Sasuke sat in his kitchen, nursing his tender cheek with an icepack. Across the table, the boy sat in a similar position, his icepack nestled against the nape of his neck. His blue eyes were trained on the parquet floor, sullen. Sasuke watched him silently, waiting for an explanation. Whatever had possessed the boy to punch Sasuke in the face was beyond his comprehension. A feeling of indignation began to swell within him – he had merely told the boy that he was about to receive another gift, and the boy had responded with the most despicable form of ingratitude Sasuke had ever seen!

"You've got some nerve," Sasuke finally said.

Naruto's head whipped up and he blurted out, "Is your girlfriend not enough?"

"My girlfriend is none of your business," Sasuke snapped, his eyes flashing dangerously. "And you'll do well to remember that."

"Well, it kind of just became my business," Naruto retorted sarcastically. "Now that I'm about to be…" he trailed off.

"About to be?" Sasuke pressed. Suddenly realization dawned on him, and he looked at Naruto in horror. "Oh, dear Lord no. You didn't think…?"

Relief washed over Naruto's expression. "You mean you weren't going to…?"

"Of course not! What do you take me for? I can't believe this, of all things…" Sasuke took a breath and collected himself. "Listen, Naruto. I know you've formed your own preconceptions about me, accurate or not, based on my interaction with Tenten. Put them aside for a second." He paused in thought for a moment. "I am an adult, above all things. I am holding down a job that keeps me within the constant scrutiny of the public eye. I have no reason to compromise my reputation by fooling around illegally with kids ten years younger than me."

Naruto bristled at Sasuke's suggestion of his immaturity. "In one year I'll be considered an adult," he said defensively. "And how could you expect me to know all of that? To me, it was just some random stranger who invited me to his house because he saw that I had an 'abnormal' interest in sauces." His voice became self-mocking. "Now isn't there something _wrong_ with this picture? Even now I don't understand what you're getting out of this."

"So you automatically assumed that I would try to take advantage of you." Sasuke's tone was affronted. "You really expect the worst from people, don't you?"

"What do you know?" Naruto practically spit out, indignation rising in his voice. "You've never spent a night out on the streets in your life. You think I'm an ignorant little kid, right? Fuck that. Try stepping off your high horse for once and living with the human dirt of the city. Maybe you'll learn something about survival that schoolbooks never taught you."

Sasuke's eyes regarded him without sympathy. "At least I don't allow my social standing to become an excuse for everything," he said coldly.

Naruto locked eyes with Sasuke for a moment. The silence was thick and oppressive as Naruto struggled to form an apt comeback, knowing that anything he would say to defend himself would only confirm Sasuke's words. Naruto instead opted to focus his attention on his sore neck, fiddling with the icepack. In the iron curtain that slammed heavily between them, the pace of seconds floundered to an agonizing funeral march.

"If you're still up for it," Sasuke offered, his tone relenting, "I am willing to give you a gift to end the night."

Sasuke rummaged through his refrigerator, occasionally straightening up to take out items and lay them on a nearby counter. He realized that Naruto was peering curiously at him, so he turned and said, "No peeking." Naruto rolled his eyes and grudgingly turned around.

Naruto heard the clatter of items being placed in front of him on the kitchen table. "Keep your eyes closed," Sasuke murmured from behind him.

Naruto snorted. "I heard the first time. " Suddenly a feathery object brushed against his lips, seeking entry. "What-?"

"Open your mouth," Sasuke directed.

"Are you slipping me drugs?" Naruto accused, cracking an eye open to glare at the man behind him.

Sasuke clapped a palm over Naruto's eyes. "Can't you follow directions? Keep them shut."

"Fine," Naruto said petulantly. He parted his lips the slightest bit and accepted the shredded piece of leaf he had taken a reassuring glimpse of beforehand.

"Now chew," Sasuke commanded. "But don't swallow." Naruto complied, crushing the leaf between his teeth and experimentally rolling the pulp on his tongue. It tasted sweet and slightly peppery, with delicate undertones of mint. "Basil," Sasuke whispered into Naruto's ear.

Naruto then felt the cool rim of a bowl press against his lips. It tipped forward, sending forth a thin stream of viscous, fragrant liquid onto Naruto's tongue.

"Oil?" Naruto asked, nonplussed.

"Wait," Sasuke responded.

Next came a small, pliable kernel that released a sweet pine fragrance upon chewing, seeming to intensify the fruity body of the oil. "Pine nut." A crumbly texture next was pushed into his mouth, dissolving on his tongue instantly. "Cheese." But before the next ingredient reached his mouth, he instinctively recoiled.

"Oh, hell no." Naruto wrinkled his nose as a pungent odor wafted to his nose. "You aren't feeding me raw garlic."

"Just try it. I promise it will be worth it," Sasuke entreated reassuringly, and slipped the thin disk of garlic into Naruto's mouth. He was right. The flavors suddenly locked into place, and like a wash cycle Naruto chewed through through the materials again and again, trying to remember why the taste was so familiar…

"Oh, that's right," Sasuke said suddenly. "I forgot." Naruto heard his footsteps recede, pause, and return. This time he felt a warm finger coated with a grainy texture touch his lips, and instinctively Naruto's tongue slipped out to suckle it wetly. It had been a dash of salt and pepper that covered Sasuke's fingertip – and the taste finally surfaced from the haze of obscure memories.

"Pesto," Naruto breathed, and opened his eyes in wonderment.

"Yes, pesto. I'm surprised you know the name of it," Sasuke said, distractedly rubbing the fingertip that had slipped into Naruto's mouth.

"You gave it to me once. At Ichiraku's. I had it once before that."

"I knew you liked it," Sasuke said, pleased. He had noticed how Naruto seemed to lap up the sauce with more gusto than the others Sasuke had left him. "I was planning on making it myself and leaving it at Ichiraku's for you...before our little contract, that is."

"Why?"

Somehow that question made Sasuke hesitate before responding. Why, indeed. Why had he spent the time and effort to please one homeless person out of the nameless five million in the city?

Perhaps it was because of Tenten and her domineering personality, which had set him on edge since the first day he met her. The relationship had been a perfect complement to his rising career, her numerous trophies and medals incorporating themselves into Sasuke's own inventory of accomplishments. But perhaps Naruto was right – as an emotional and spiritual counterpart, she had truly "not been enough" for Sasuke.

At the same time, however, Sasuke could not say that he deigned to spend a night with a homeless boy simply to revolt against Tenten's romantic despotism. He could have contacted a pricey, close-lipped escort service and had his night's worth of venting arrive on his doorstep, lingerie and all. Instead he had taken interest in haggard boy who fit nowhere in the trophy box of his lifetime achievements.

But Sasuke cut off that thread of thought before it threatened to manifest itself on his lips. Vacillation was a sure sign of weakness, and Sasuke knew better than to let the boy believe that he had any sway over Sasuke's emotions. Naruto was under Sasuke's realm of control for the time being, and Sasuke was sure to keep it that way.

"I suppose you can call it a fascination with the underbelly of Konoha," Sasuke said smoothly, flashing Naruto his most convincing smile. "And what better to learn of the affairs of such places than from a street boy himself?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "I'm not going to get involved in your business dealings."

"No, no," Sasuke waved Naruto's suspicions off. "It's merely a personal interest. Besides, once in a while one needs a change in company."

"So you talk to homeless boys in your spare time," Naruto stated disbelievingly.

Sasuke tutted. "Again with your social prejudices."

Naruto rolled his eyes and stood up, cutting the conversation short. He wasn't going to follow down that thread of conversation again. He scooped up the ingredients on the table and said, "Well, am I going to have to chew this all together or are you going to blend it for me?"

Sasuke found the boy curled on his most comfortable couch only fifteen minutes later, blissfully asleep. He placed the freshly-made bowl of pesto in his hands onto a nearby coffee table and reached for the remote, clicking off the television that had been left on.

"Troublesome little brat," he sighed. He prodded the boy's chest. "Wake up. Street boy. Dirty blonde." Said blonde grumbled in response and waved Sasuke off in his sleep, turning on his side.

Sasuke shook his head resignedly. The boy gave the phrase "unwelcome guest" a whole new meaning. He had come to Sasuke's house, punched him in the face, then proceeded to lecture him on the hypocrisy of the upper class. To top it off, he concluded the day by unconsciously refusing to leave.

And then Sasuke remembered the pink tongue that had stretched out of the boy's mouth as he fed him salt and pepper. He had meant to sprinkle the spices into Naruto's waiting mouth, but the boy had gone ahead and swiped his tongue against his hand – god, he had even felt him suck against the tip of his finger like a child milking his mother's nipple! Hadn't the boy been the one shrieking about sexual harassment?

Sasuke shuddered involuntarily. That pink tongue, though he would be mortified to admit it, had been the object of his fascination ever since he had seen the boy in Ichiraku's. It was the only naked, unsoiled part of his body that the boy dared to expose to others around him, shutting everything else away behind his grimy exterior. Sasuke had succeeded in confiscating his dingy coat and scrubbing the dirt from his skin, stripping away the protective layers that the boy had built up for so long. Sasuke had only meant to go so far. But then the boy had literally sucked Sasuke into his most hidden regions, sliding his finger into the slick orifice to join the other gritty textures that Sasuke had fed him. When the boy withdrew his finger Sasuke had felt that piece of muscled flesh slide messily against his own skin in parting, the rough surface leaving a warm residue in its wake. Thankfully Naruto had not noticed how Sasuke's breath caught as the boy flicked his tongue against the sensitive pad of his finger. God, he was sick! He jabbed the boy more roughly.

Naruto grumbled again and curled up more tightly against the back cushions of the sofa. Sasuke sighed and lifted his hands in defeat. He could not simply kick the sleeping boy back onto the streets – it was against his basic sense of human decency. So he grabbed multiple comforters from the linen closet and dumped them unceremoniously over Naruto's thin body.

"God knows I'm going to regret this tomorrow morning," Sasuke muttered. "If you're awake, little urchin, I'm locking up all my valuables. Don't try anything."

* * *

Naruto woke up with a strange weight on his shoulders. With bleary eyes he sat up and took notice of the luxuriant heap of blankets that lay in his lap. He sniffed and caught the faint aroma of eggs and onion frying in butter. When had he died and joined the angels in heaven?

But his growling stomach told him that he was very much alive, and with a sudden spark of dread his face blanched. _No. No, no, no._ He hadn't fallen asleep in the man's house, had he? He turned, and the familiar flat-paneled TV that he had watched the night before confirmed his fears.

With a cry of dismay Naruto tore the covers away and jumped off the sofa, checking his body. There were no bruises or strange marks on his skin, and most relieving of all there was no twinge of pain in his nether regions. The man had been decent enough to leave him unharmed for the night.

"I didn't touch you," came a voice from behind Naruto. Sasuke was leaning against the doorframe, watching Naruto's frantic self-checkup with barely concealed amusement.

"Good," was all Naruto could say. Sasuke's appearance had surprised him – he was wearing a lapelled black suit that tapered narrowly at his waist, with matching silk pants. The locks of hair that normally hung on his cheeks were slicked back and glistened heavily with gel, revealing his stately cheekbones. A large silver wristwatch glinted expensively as he drew his hands from his pockets. _So this is "Sasuke," _Naruto mused. All in all, the man looked as smooth and angular as tempered steel.

"There are eggs and toast in the kitchen," Sasuke said, his tone suddenly turning brisk and businesslike. "I have to leave for work in ten minutes, and you will be unwelcome in my house after that time period. Don't expect this to be a reoccurring opportunity."

"Yeah, I got it," Naruto muttered and tossed off the covers, following Sasuke into the kitchen. Upon seeing the heaping stack of buttered bread, the steaming plate of eggs, and a glass of milk set on the table for him, he darted to the nearest seat and began devouring a piece of toast eagerly.

"So you don't just live off sauces," Sasuke observed in wonder.

"I'm still a human being," Naruto retorted, pausing to take a long swig of milk. "Collecting sauces just happens to be one of my ambitions."

Sasuke nodded in understanding and sat down in the chair opposite him, elegantly crossing his legs. "You know, that shirt fits you well. Keep it."

Naruto looked down at the shirt that had been rumpled from sleep. "This? Really? I –" He shut his mouth and his eyes instantly went blank. "No. I won't take it."

"It's not charity," Sasuke said, his tone cautious. "I don't believe in that. I outgrew that shirt a long time ago. Keep it."

"I'll take charity any day," Naruto hissed, dropping his fork. "Because some people actually care enough to give to others. But what I won't take is your fucking pity." With that he stood up and stripped off the shirt, dropping it on Sasuke's lap.

"Was that why you didn't throw a fit when that woman at Ichiraku's gave you the hamburger?" Sasuke asked quietly, bunching the shirt in his hands. "Because you thought she cared about you? Because she didn't have the slightest ounce of pity for you? Charity and pity go hand in hand, Naruto."

"Maybe she felt sorry for me. But at least she didn't push her garbage onto me as if I wasn't even worth the gesture." Naruto jabbed his thumb at the door. "I'm leaving now. Thanks for the meal, or whatever I'm supposed to say. Now give me back my clothes."

"I threw them away."

"_WHAT?_" Naruto wheeled around, his eyes blazing. He stalked over and grabbed the lapels of Sasuke's suit. "You FUCKING did WHAT?"

"Now put the shirt on," Sasuke said commandingly, brushing off Naruto's trembling fists and standing up. "I'll buy you a decent coat on the way to work. Then I'll drop you off at Ichiraku's."

"_Stop trying to fit me into your fucking timetable-_"

Suddenly a series of chimes rang through the household. Sasuke's eyes darted to the door, then to Naruto's naked torso, and a brief spark of terror lit his eyes.

"It's Tenten, isn't it?" Naruto asked instinctively.

"Put the shirt on," Sasuke repeated.

"She's going to kill you, isn't she?"

"Put the shirt on." Sasuke's tone was cold and unemphatic, taking on the voice he used while dealing with stubborn subordinates.

Naruto's voice was firm. "No. Once you give me my clothes back."

"You know I don't have them."

"Then that's too bad," Naruto declared triumphantly. "Looks like karma finally decided to screw you over."

And Sasuke watched in horror as Naruto scrambled off to unlock the front door.

"_Naruto!_"

* * *

Heh heh. Naruto and his shenanigans.

I just noticed that if you break down "Sasuke" in English, it's pronounced "Sauce-gay." Are these NOT the two premises that this story is based on? I mean COME ON, what a coincidence!

Anyway, please do review. If you can't tell, this chapter was incredibly painstaking to craft, and I would like people to leave thoughtful comments. I absolutely LOVE all the readers who send me observant reviews, and if I met you in real life I would probably hug you to death. XD So instead I reply to all the reviewers who give me good feedback. I love meeting new people, so if we keep up a fairly regular correspondence we might just become buddies...*cough cough psychedelic-inkblot*

So sign in, leave a comment, and join the rakaboyi friend circle! There will be cookies! :-D

And plus, I'd really like to know what little details readers pick up on.

So please, humor me?


	4. Chapter 3

EDIT: Sorry, I just had to upload this again. After rereading the fic I felt incredibly ashamed of the rushed, awkward pacing. I was hurrying to get something out to you guys, and I ended up sacrificing its quality. I promise this won't happen again.

Again, I have to acknowledge my reviewer **Sunny**, who just won't stop sending me the most thorough and encouraging reviews I have ever recieved! XD Seriously, Sunny, you are awesome. I think your critique made me the happiest person on the planet for a good solid 24 hours. :-)

I made some major revisions to Chapter 2. If you're too lazy to read it, the only thing you really need to know beforehand is that there is a fountain of angels in Sasuke's front hallway.

And now, I'd like to introduce some more reinvented characters, served á la Rakaboyi. Buon appetito!

* * *

Naruto's heart hammered against his ribcage as he frantically fumbled with the lock. Before he could slide the bar from its cage a solid weight slammed into him, and he cried out in pain. Sasuke had Naruto pinned bodily against the door, one arm locked firmly around the boy's waist and the other pressed against Naruto's fingers, splaying them upon the door lock.

"Get off! It hurts!" Naruto said loudly, and Sasuke hastily clapped his hand against the boy's mouth to muffle his voice.

"Quiet down!" he hissed.

"Sasuke, are you in there? Who was that?" Tenten's muffled voice came from outside.

"Listen to me," Sasuke whispered harshly to the boy under him. "You don't know the extent of the Uchiha family's influence. We have men working in the police force, men working in the ministries, men working in the business sector. You go out there and misconstrue the situation to my girlfriend, then you can rest assured that I have the means to search every trash bag in Konoha City to hunt you down. Is that clear?" Naruto nodded, shivering at the man's emotionless promise of retribution. "Good. Now put on this shirt. Go into the kitchen and grab the garbage bin, and clean up whatever you can from the floor. You are the house boy that I just hired on Wednesday, understand?"

Naruto twisted his head to shoot the man his most venomous glare. "Bastard," he hissed. He violently shrugged off the man's slackening grip and stalked into the kitchen without a word.

Sasuke sighed in relief as soon as the boy was out of sight, his shoulders visibly relaxing. He straightened his tie and smoothed out his suit, then opened the door to greet his expectant girlfriend.

"Good morning, Tenten!" he greeted, feigning an expression of pleasant surprise. "I didn't expect you to be coming."

"Well, Coach cancelled practice this morning, so I decided to pick you up and drive you to work…" Tenten explained, distractedly peering over Sasuke's shoulder. "But Sasuke, what was that sound I heard earlier? I heard a thud, and then someone yelling."

"Oh, that?" Sasuke chuckled. "That was my new cleaning boy. Naruto, come over here and greet my girlfriend, Tenten."

A sullen teenage boy appeared in the hallway, holding a basket filled with tissues and paper scraps.

Tenten regarded the boy a bit skeptically. "Why is he wearing a dress shirt?"

Sasuke beckoned Naruto over and clapped his hand on the boy's shoulder amicably. "You see, we had a bit of a squabble this morning. Naruto was supposed to come and start cleaning at five o'clock, but he had gone to a party with his girlfriend that lasted until six in the morning. Naturally I was very…displeased." Sasuke placed the slightest emphasis on the word, knowing that the implication was clear. "But Naruto now knows that such behavior will not be tolerated in the future."

Tenten stifled a giggle as the boy turned to Sasuke, his eyes fuming. "I'm sure your cleaning boy isn't happy with your arrangements," Tenten noted. "Look at him, he's practically blowing steam out his ears."

"No, there's nothing wrong," Naruto said hastily, glancing at Sasuke's cooling expression. "Sas – Mr. Uchiha is a good employer."

"Oh, give me a break. I'll bet he paid you to say that," Tenten laughed, waving Naruto's statement away. "Sasuke, be a little more considerate. The boy doesn't even look like he's out of high school, and you're making him come to your house and pick up your trash at 5:00 in the morning. Hell, back in those days my mom had to drag me down the stairs at 7:00 to barely make the bell," she added, winking good-naturedly at Naruto.

Naruto couldn't help but grin in response. _So this is Tenten,_ he thought. To his amusement he noticed that she was wearing the exact style of track wear that Neji and Gaara had been groaning over the night before. But Tenten had an overall pleasant personality – she pronounced her syllables in a quick, intelligent manner, and her face exuded a boyish confidence. Naruto instinctively knew that she was type of girl Sasuke would hate.

"But you know how I am about people coming into my house when I'm not present," Sasuke had been protesting, his voice light. "And at nighttime my schedule is always open-ended to allow for some variability in my company's deadlines. The morning is the only time I can be certain that I'll be home."

"You and your insecurities," Tenten said with a groan, sharing another knowing look with Naruto. "Learn to trust people a bit more, Sasuke. Not everyone is going to barge into your life and try to ruin it."

Sasuke's lips twitched at that statement. _Little did she know, _he thought sardonically_._

"Well, Naruto, it's been good meeting you. I'll have to drive Sasuke before he's late for work. But on the way, I'll do a little collective bargaining with Sasuke on your part." She grinned conspiratorially, shaking Naruto's hand. "See you soon! Let's leave, Sasuke."

"You let your girlfriend drive you to work?" Naruto whispered tauntingly as Sasuke brushed past him.

"You'll shut that little mouth of yours," Sasuke ordered, towering imperiously over him in the doorway. "And while you're in the house, you'll keep your hands to yourself. I have kept all items of value under lock and key. But if you try to tamper with anything, consider yourself a dead man…or rat." His eyes swept over him dismissively, and he followed Tenten to her car. Naruto locked eyes with Sasuke's mistrustful ones as the vehicle began pulling out of the driveway. When Tenten wasn't looking, he lifted his middle finger at the man in farewell.

Sasuke gazed pensively through the window as the car passed through Chitose Park. He caught sight of the ice cream vendor he and Naruto had visited the night before, setting up his stand for the day.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Tenten said, glancing at Sasuke's silent figure. He was always a quiet one, but this morning Sasuke seemed distracted and inattentive. That in itself was surprising to Tenten, who rarely witnessed Sasuke in a state of agitation.

"I'm just thinking over my presentation for this morning. The company execs weren't too happy with the latest commercial concept that Promotion had been working on for ages," Sasuke said offhandedly.

"So it wasn't the boy from this morning that's gotten you all muddle-headed?"

Sasuke laughed derisively. "Why, that little br – boy? He couldn't penetrate the average person's mind if he tried."

Tenten flashed him a shrewd smile. "Normally you would have praised that boy to high heaven, whether you liked him or not."

Sasuke leaned his head against the cushion of his seat, smiling tiredly. He could really never get past Tenten's razor-sharp sense of intuition. "Tenten, dear, I think it would be best if you stopped driving me to work."

Tenten frowned. "Why?"

"I really wonder if it sends the wrong message. People might think I'm a hopeless boyfriend, making my girlfriend go through the trouble of driving me places."

Tenten shook her head vigorously. "No, you see, that is exactly why I should be driving you. You tell those people to go to hell, along with their outdated notion of gender roles."

"But really –"

"I mean, seriously! Women are perfectly capable of doing things on their own."

"I understand-"

"Sometimes I just don't understand why people think it is perfectly okay to peg the female species as some kind of…some kind of social parasite!"

"Yes, but –"

"And the men! God, sometimes I just can't tolerate them! Do you remember nationals? There was that one sportscaster – remember how he started pitching a fit when one of the most competent female pole-vaulters I have _ever _known was able to clear thirteen feet? Remember when he had said it was a fluke? God, that made my blood boil." Tenten sucked in her breath angrily.

"Yes, Tenten, I remember," Sasuke said resignedly.

"It's time for people to stop shitlisting strong women. I can't even begin to talk about…" Tenten's indignant voice faded away as Sasuke shut his ears off and began to mentally recite his speech for the morning.

* * *

When Sasuke and his girlfriend had driven off, the first thing Naruto did was jump into the fountain of angels with a triumphant whoop.

"Bet the bastard does shower in here," he stage-whispered to a nearby angel frozen in a perpetual crouch. "Tell me, is he pale all over?" He threw back his head and let out another delighted cackle at his own antics.

"I'm Sasuke Uchiha, the richest person in Konoha," Naruto boomed pompously to the empty room, flipping back his wet hair dramatically. "I'm so filthy rich, I built a fountain inside my house so I could jack off to holy figures in privacy. Am I right?" Naruto elbowed the angel's muscled torso.

Naruto jumped out of the fountain, landing on the marble floor in a large puddle of water. "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am Sasuke Uchiha! I could fly hiiiigher than an eagle," Naruto sang loudly, his voice reverberating against the vaulted ceiling. "'Cause you are the wind beneath my wings."

He laughed and sprinted towards the living room, his wet pants flapping loudly against the tiled floor. He reached the end of the house and threw open the French doors leading to the sea. An icy burst of salty air buffeted him with a thunderous impact, nearly toppling him over.

"_L'Cheim!_" he cried above the roar of the ocean, raising his fist skywards. He skipped down the deck stairs and ran barefoot through the snow-covered beach, barreling straight into the freezing water. His body screamed in agony as the subzero ocean water torched his limbs like liquid fire. Naruto laughed.

"Hey you, kid!" A voice yelled from behind Naruto. A brown-haired man standing on the deck of the neighboring house stood in a bright-red parka, waving furiously at him. "Are you fucking crazy? Get out of there!"

Naruto saluted him cheerily. "Yes, sir!" He tried to get up, but his legs had lost feeling.

"Fucking teenagers!" The man swore loudly and raced down the steps. "You can't keep them from acting like dumbasses!"

He quickly ran into the water and grabbed the boy by the shoulders, moving him onto the beach. "Christ, you're not even wearing shoes! You wanna die or something?"

"No sir. I'm loving life!" Naruto shouted back brazenly.

"Loving life, this _bambino_ says!" The man slapped the back of Naruto's head. "You think you're some hippie or something? Smoking the good stuff?"

"No drugs," Naruto affirmed.

"Then you're even more messed up in the head!" the man yelled, smacking the back of Naruto's head with more force. "You thought it would be a fantastic idea to take a little dip in the water, didn't you? No harm done, right? Just a little hypothermia, possibly lose a couple of fingers, and – oh, just _maybe_ – death! Now wouldn't that be a funny experiment to share with all your little friends at school?"

Naruto laughed, but it caught in his throat as his teeth began chattering violently.

"God, you're halfway there!" the man cried, unzipping his parka and wrapping it around Naruto's shoulders. "Thank your lucky stars I saw you from the window before you dropped dead."

Naruto was ushered into the man's house and immediately plunged into a bath of warm water. The man's wife, a tall blonde woman, fussed over him with maternal warmth.

"Hot chocolate," she cooed to him as she poured handfuls of water over his hair. "I'll make you a nice mug of hot chocolate, hon, to warm you up."

"Ino, you're coddling the kid," the man said from the doorway. "He needs to realize that for every action – stupid ones especially – there are consequences."

"You don't tell me how to take care of a child, Kiba," Ino snapped. "I've been raising one for fifteen years."

"You're not everyone's mother!" Kiba shot back.

"And you're not Captain of the ANBU Force at home," Ino retorted. "So leave work at work." She turned to Naruto and smiled kindly. "What's your name, sweetie?"

"Naruto."

"Naruto…?"

"Uchiha." Naruto bit his tongue after the name slipped past his lips.

"Oh that's right, he was right in front of the Uchiha's mansion," Kiba recalled. He peered at Naruto suspiciously. "You don't look anything like them, though. The black hair and black eyes."

"I'm not a blood relation," Naruto said quickly. "I married into the Uchiha clan."

"But how does that work? Your surname shouldn't have changed."

"God, Kiba, learn how to pick up on social cues!" Ino said exasperatedly. She lowered her voice so as to sound less offensive. "He's obviously saying that he's _gay_, honey."

"A fairy Uchiha? Really?" Kiba mused. "I wonder how that slipped through. They're the most tight-ass conservatives I've ever met."

Ino squawked indignantly. "That's it, you vulgar son-of-a-bitch!" She wheeled her husband out before he could make any further crass comments.

Naruto sank lower under the bathwater as he listened to the couple bicker passionately outside the bathroom door. He bit his tongue again, chastising it for its disobedience. In the space of a few minutes he had just splattered mud on the reputation of the most powerful clan in the city and put himself smack in the center of it. And he had talked to the head of the police department, of all people! Now they could match a face to a name, in case Sasuke decided to follow through with his previous threat of vengeance. He had just made himself a sitting duck for the Uchiha's private intelligence agency as well as the entire ANBU force. "I'm dead," Naruto moaned, splaying his fingers on his face in dismay.

As if on cue, Kiba burst in and declared emphatically, "So you've finally come to your senses? That's-a-boy! Hon, make some of your hot chocolate for the poor kid!"

After changing into one of the man's large T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants, Naruto was invited to join the family for lunch.

"You need meat on that frame, kid," Kiba announced to Naruto from the kitchen, flipping a large pork sausage on the griddle. "What has the Uchiha been feeding you? Wheatgrass and other fancy-schmanzy rabbit food?"

Naruto smirked slightly at the jibe. He pulled out a seat next to a stocky brunette boy a few years younger than him. "Hey," the boy greeted Naruto generically.

Naruto nodded back.

"Food smells good," the boy said, sniffing. "Doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Naruto agreed.

"My dad's the best cook in the city," the boy said proudly. "If he didn't go into the police force he would have started his own restaurant. I've never had Italian food better than Papa's. Even the restaurants in Ledachi don't compare."

Naruto didn't know much about Ledachi in the first place, so he settled with a noncommittal response. "Hmm."

"You're not much of a talker, are you?" the boy observed.

"Not really."

"What is this, some kind of interrogation?" Ino tutted as she began laying out forks and knives onto the table. "Chouji, you're making our guest feel a little uncomfortable. Why don't you start with our traditional family greeting?"

Chouji groaned. "_Ma,_" he complained. "That's so old-fashioned."

"Nonsense," Ino replied with a wave of her hand. "Ready?"

Chouji mumbled in protest before he reluctantly began. "_Quando la mare cresce…_"

"…_e la luna splende,_" Ino sang, twirling a fork in the air. "_Con noi,_ _bevi il mare…"_

"_Y mangi la luna!_" Kiba placed a plate of steaming spaghetti topped with onions, sausage, and tomato sauce in front of Naruto with a grand flourish of his arm. "_Buon appetito._"

Naruto's hands trembled a bit as the scent of basil and fresh tomatoes wafted from the spaghetti. Momentarily forgetting the family sitting around him, his tongue darted out instinctively and lapped at the sauce. The acid tang of the tomatoes balanced in perfect symmetry with the creaminess of the feta cheese. Aromatic notes of garlic and herbs floated sensuously above the base ingredients, and the meaty essence of the sausage chunks seeped into the mix. It was heavenly.

But he suddenly noticed that the room had gone silent. He stopped licking half-way and sat up quickly. He cast his eyes down in shame, looking at his plate with flaming cheeks.

Kiba burst out with a lusty roar of laughter. "There's an animal living in this kid!" he said proudly, thumping Naruto on the back. "Uchiha's been holding him on a leash, it seems. Here, get your fill while you can!" He took the saucepan from the kitchen and ladled hearty spoonfuls of sauce onto Naruto's plate.

Ino giggled. "_Now_ I see why Sasuke likes you so much." She winked suggestively at Naruto, who began to splutter in horror.

Chouji groaned. "Ma, don't be disgusting!"

"You and your homoerotic fantasies," Kiba said scornfully. "Save them for your bathtub reading."

After lunch, Ino announced that she simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to go shopping with Naruto. "I've never gotten enough feedback from the opposite sex," she pressed. "Won't you come with me?"

"You can say no, son," Kiba said encouragingly. "She's always wanted to play the role of a fag-hag."

"Shut it, Kiba," she shot at her husband. "I only wanted to bring him because his boyfriend has such good fashion sense. Naruto must get dolled up all the time! Isn't that right?" She turned to Naruto pleadingly.

"Sure," Naruto heard himself say. "I'll go with you."

And so Naruto found himself walking down Ledachi for the second time, his arm linked around Ino's. "So maybe my husband was half-right," she admitted, squeezing his arm chummily. "I've always wanted to walk down Ledachi like this, arm-in-arm with a fashionably gay man." She laughed. "My husband would pitch a fit if he saw us. But that makes it all the more exciting, doesn't it?"

Naruto couldn't help but return the older woman's cheeky grin. Even though the lines on her face were tell-tale signs of a woman past her thirties, she retained all the childish exuberance of her teens and the sensuous charm of her twenties. Her long ponytail swung like a bullwhip with every dangerous tilt of her hips, bound to strike and reel in any unsuspecting male in the vicinity. Naruto knew that his position, intimately sheltered under the woman's maternal umbrella, was envied by anyone who walked by. He quickened his pace as Ino's brisk steps pulled him forward.

"How about this one?" Naruto suggested, pointing to a shop displaying full-length gowns in satin and lace.

"No, I'm not looking for something _that_ fancy," Ino said, giggling. "But I'm definitely in the mood for sexy. How about we stop at Dior?"

Naruto nodded quickly, wondering what exactly "Dior" was.

Dior was the name of a clothing store, which Naruto soon discovered as the pair walked into a building with a baby-blue façade. As Ino pulled open the door for him, Naruto froze in the entrance. Multiple pairs of mascara-lined eyes fell on him simultaneously.

"What's wrong?" Ino asked.

"Nothing," Naruto muttered, and slipped his arm in the familiar cradle of Ino's elbow. Somehow, sharing the same space of the richest women in the city was an intimidating prospect. He felt the gazes of the women in the store smolder through the clothes on his back. They were accusing him of stepping past a line, of crossing into their immaculate, perfumed bubble. Even though he had washed twice in the past few days, he felt as if the dirt from his past seventeen years surfaced from the depths of his flesh like fingerprints under a blacklight.

"May I help you?" A shop girl approached them, clad in a tight-fitting purple dress and dangerously high stilettos.

"We're only looking around, thanks," Ino assured her.

"Well, if you find anything in particular, don't hesitate to call me," the girl responded, her eyes lingering on Naruto. She smiled at him coyly.

"Sure," Naruto felt obliged to say. He shrank into Ino's reassuring figure, feeling entirely out of place. The girl smoothly turned on her heel and strutted away with a slight sway of her hips.

Ino nudged him knowingly. "It's too bad you're not interested in women. She would have been a fine catch."

Naruto felt bewildered. The girl had been flirting with him? Only moments ago he had feared that he would be booted out of the store!

"Yeah, she was pretty," Naruto agreed tentatively.

Ino laughed. "The sign of a true gay man," she said. "Talking about beautiful women as if he was commenting on the weather."

_But I'm not gay, _Naruto thought desperately. He had to clear that up before Sasuke caught wind of his blundering lie. "Ino, I'm sorry, but I want to tell you that –"

But Ino had already moved on to the nearest rack, pulling out a blouse made of sheer fabric. "Is this too provocative, you think?"

Naruto sighed. "It looks fine," he commented weakly.

Within the next half-hour, Naruto stood behind Ino as she selected various shirts and dresses, attempting to insert helpful comments in whenever necessary. But Ino was not easily fooled. After placing the seventh shirt on her breast for Naruto to examine, she said, "You're not really having fun, are you?"

Naruto shrugged. "I really don't shop." _Ever._

Ino smiled in understanding. "I should have realized. You're a pretty young boy, after all."

"Sorry," Naruto apologized, feeling slightly guilty.

"No, no," Ino said, shaking her head vigorously. "I practically forced you into going on this trip. Why don't you wait outside the fitting room while I try on some of these shirts, hon?" She squeezed his shoulder good-naturedly and guided him to the row of curtained stalls in the back of the store.

As Naruto lingered near the fitting area, the shop girl from before sidled up to him.

"Shopping with your mom? How sweet," she said conversationally.

"She's not my mom." Somehow, Naruto found the girl incredibly irritating. He knew her type well – they were the girls who walked by on the streets with a leather purse in one hand and a coffee cup in the other, mimicking the adults they hated and yet so desperately wanted to be. And like their elders they would goggle him contemptuously, as if he was responsible for ruining the illusion of glamour and beauty in the city.

"Oh," the girl said. "Your aunt then?"

"No," Naruto said, smirking. "She's my lover."

"_Her?_" The simpering look slipped from the girl's face, replaced with an expression of horror. "But she looks like she's _forty_!"

"And she has a body just as good as yours." Naruto looked the girl up and down dismissively. "I would know." His mouth stretched into an obscene smile.

"You're sick," the girl hissed. "You could have just said you weren't interested." She stomped away in disgust and wounded pride.

"Did you say something?" Ino popped her head out the curtain, her hair slightly tousled and a bra strap dangling from one shoulder.

"Nope," Naruto assured her. "One of the girls was just checking up on us."

When the two paid at the cash register, the shop girl avoided eye contact with Naruto. "Your total will be 345.96," she announced smoothly.

"That's not too bad," Ino said in relief, fumbling through her purse in search of her credit card. In her hasty search, a few brightly colored packages of condoms tumbled out.

"Whoops," Ino said, her cheeks faintly dusting with color as she retrieved the condoms from the floor. "That's embarrassing."

The girl's eyes bugged out in disbelief, glancing in Naruto's direction in horror. Naruto turned his head quickly, stifling his laughter.

"I have to apologize," Naruto told Ino later in the car.

"What happened?"

"I told that girl in the shop that you were my girlfriend."

"You did _what_?" Ino laughed incredulously. "And she actually bought it?"

"Well, at the cash register…"

Ino gasped. "The condoms." She buried her head into the driving wheel. "Nooo," she moaned dramatically. "I can never show my face there again."

"I'm sorry," Naruto repeated, fidgeting a little.

"No, I totally deserved it," Ino said, laughing. "You must have been bored out of your mind. Besides, I still have to repay you for accompanying me."

"That's not necessary," Naruto said quickly. "I don't need anything."

"We won't go shopping again," Ino assured him. Suddenly a beeping noise sounded from the passenger seat. She fumbled through her purse with one hand and pulled out a slim black device, flipping it open. "Oh, shoot. I forgot about that meeting today." She turned to Naruto with an apologetic smile. "Guess you're going to have to take a raincheck on our follow-up date."

Ino drove Naruto back into the neighborhood, bypassing Sasuke's house to park in the Inuzukas' driveway. "Before you go home, I'm sure Kiba and Chouji want to say good-bye," she explained. "By the way, when did you move in?"

Naruto shook his head. "I don't live here. My house is…on the other side of town."

Ino clucked her tongue in dismay. "Well, that's too bad. We were hoping to get to know you guys well. Unfortunately, Sasuke Uchiha is a bit of a recluse. We never see him outside, enjoying himself like the rest of the world. It's good to know he gets out once in a while," Ino said, smiling pointedly at Naruto.

Naruto opened his mouth to clear up the situation once more, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to break character. "I'll be sure to visit you again," Naruto promised.

"You'd better," Ino said jauntily. "Now scoot, kid. I bet Kiba's cooking up a storm now that you've stirred up his creative juices."

Indeed, when Naruto opened the front door a robust aroma collided into his nostrils at full impact.

"You're back!" came the booming voice. Kiba poked his head out of the kitchen to glance at Naruto standing in the foyer. He was wearing a black apron dusted with flour, reminding Naruto of the pizza tossers standing in the window of LaSalle's.

Chouji's face appeared from behind his father. "You got lucky," he told Naruto. "Papa's going to make his world-famous beef bourguignon. He only does it once a year."

"And my rosemary bread," Kiba added boastfully, slapping a thick piece of dough between his floured hands. "Can't forget the _pan marino_."

Within the next hour Naruto's tongue salivated agonizingly as the scent of rosemary, olive oil, and beef bubbling in red wine filled the house.

"Look at him," Kiba said, chuckling as Naruto breathed in the scents as if they combined to form an exquisite perfume. Kiba circulated the air in front of Naruto's face. "Just take it in, kid. The torture of waiting is what makes the meal so delicious. _Isn't that right__, son?_"

In the kitchen, Chouji shrank from the pot at his father's raised voice, his finger stuck guiltily between his lips.

"Since _some_ of us can't wait any longer," Kiba said pointedly, "I think we should start setting the plates."

As three hearty bowls of soup and a hunk of steaming bread were placed on the table, the Inuzukas and their guest sat down eagerly for dinner. Kiba gripped Naruto's hands before he could reach for his spoon. "Now, wait. You have to eat this properly," he explained. "There's a ritual that every respectable Italian follows."

He tore a chunk of bread and sopped it in the soup. He held the morsel in front of Naruto, who took it from Kiba's hands and bit into it.

"That's good," Naruto said in surprise. The chewy bread retained the juices like a sponge, squeezing out the meaty essence as he crushed the thick, savory crust between his jaws.

"What did I tell you?" Chouji said proudly.

"He's an amazing cook," Naruto agreed wholeheartedly. "The soup is just the right thickness. It balances well with the carrots and onions."

"Well, well!" Kiba boomed happily. "We have a little connoisseur on our hands."

"But I always compliment your soup, too!" Chouji protested to his father, hurt.

"Son, you can't hog all the attention. Naruto deserves some credit too," Kiba reasoned diplomatically. "I guess you can call us the great creators. We are the ones who bring every dish to life. But every great creator needs a great critic - otherwise, where is the audience to enjoy our art? That is Naruto's role." He grinned at Naruto. "You're indispensable, kid. The _Konoha Times_ needs people like you. Someday we'll see your name under the Food and Drink section."

"The _Konoha Times_?" Naruto scoffed. The sardonic effect was entirely lost, though, as Naruto's face broke into a hopeful, foolish smile.

Naruto had only meant to stay for thirty minutes more, but when he attempted to excuse himself Kiba and Chouji had somehow persuaded him to sit down and chat for a while longer. As the three lapsed into an easy conversation, Naruto found himself falling comfortably into the role of Sasuke's lover.

"He's a quiet man," Naruto told Kiba confidentially, his voice dropping in fitting reverence. "He enjoys the simple things in life. It's something that I've always found attractive." As he grew bolder, he even began to insert petty details about Sasuke's life: the man only ate eggs and toast in the morning, refused to befriend straight men, and was a chronic shop-a-holic. The Inuzukas soaked up Naruto's details in rapturous awe, building a picture of the elusive man who only appeared on money magazine covers and in televised conferences.

By the time the sun had set Naruto had eaten three bowlfuls of Kiba's soup, his once-loose waistband cinching uncomfortably around his midsection. He glanced at the darkening sky. Naruto knew that Sasuke would be returning soon, and the man still owed him a favor.

"I think Sasuke is waiting for me," he said apologetically to the family. "It's time for me to leave."

Kiba and Chouji expressed their dismay in exaggerated sighs and clucked tongues, tempting him to stay a while longer with the promise of dessert. But Naruto gently pushed away their pleas, and they relented.

"Don't go swimming until spring!" Kiba shouted behind Naruto as he waved goodbye. "I won't be outside to save your ass next time!"

When Naruto crossed the beach and walked up the steps leading to Sasuke's porch, he realized that the French doors were still flung wide open. "Oh, fuck," Naruto whispered. He quickly shuffled in and shut the doors behind him, fumbling blindly against the wall for the light switch. He recoiled in shock as his foot splashed into an icy puddle of water.

Horrified, Naruto's eyes followed the trail of water that ran down the length of the hallway to the front entrance, a reminder of his gleeful fiasco in the fountain. Naruto calculated that the entire mess would take at least an hour to mop up. To make matters worse, Sasuke was bound to show up from work at any time. _Kiba was right,_ Naruto thought bitterly as he ran to the upstairs bathroom. _There are always consequences for stupid actions._

He grabbed a folded pile of towels from a bathroom closet, rushing back downstairs to throw them on the path of footprint-sized puddles in the hallway. In one sweeping move he pushed all the soaked towels into a collective heap, scooping the dripping bundle into his arms and dumping it in the bathroom sink upstairs. Surely Sasuke would notice the mess, but Naruto knew that his irritation would pale in comparison to his reaction if he found out that Naruto had jumped into his prized fountain of angels.

Next, Naruto set about looking for the heating controls in the house. His search proved fruitless, for he realized that he would have to scan the walls of all twenty-five rooms in the house for the device. "Fire should do the trick," Naruto muttered to himself as he returned to the kitchen, turning up all four burners on the gas stove.

In quiet triumph Naruto dragged himself to the living room, collapsing on the softest couch. The day's events, as exciting as they were, had sucked his emotional and mental reserves dry. The image of Sasuke's contemptuous face from the morning briefly flashed in Naruto's mind. He snorted, a sardonic smile settling on his face as he drifted into a weary slumber.

Naruto woke an hour later to a foul smell, reminiscent of rotting egg. _What the hell? _he thought groggily, sitting up. As his senses began to surface from the fog of unconsciousness, the offensive odor swelled threefold, drowning his nostrils in its overwhelming intensity. His head began to spin, and bile rose up in his throat in warning. He clapped his hand over his mouth and dashed to the nearby fountain of angels, leaning over to vomit all three bowls of Kiba's beef bourguignon into the basin.

Somewhere in the midst of his body's turmoil he vaguely heard the click of the front door, followed by brief staccato taps of leather shoes crossing into the threshold.

"Naruto?" It was Sasuke's voice.

The jets of water shooting from the outstretched hand of the fountain's tallest angel turned crimson.

* * *

Huh. My characters keep on ending up finding themselves in compromising situations.

So, how about that Italian Inuzuka family? I always imagined Kiba as one of those Italian men (and I'm not at all alluding to the characters in Jersey Shore). And Ino - I mean, duh. Blonde bombshell, mafia wife.

I want to apologize about breaking my weekly update streak. It was working so well because I was on vacation, but now classes have thrown me back into the boxing ring. I have the next chapter planned out, so you can hopefully expect it soon.


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